When Takao Saito’s manga creation of the worlds deadliest assassin, Golgo 13, was first optioned by Toei Studios he had but two caveats. The first was that the entire film should be shot on location, and the second was that the actor that the character was based upon should be hired to play him. That actor was Ken Takakura, and rarely has one man encapsulated a character so well.
Having said that, the character of Golgo 13 doesn’t have the greatest of depth to him and he is often absent from his own stories, letting side characters play out the drama only for Golgo to step in at the very last moment to deliver his death shot with the clinical accuracy that made him famous throughout this fictionalised underworld. With so little to draw from maybe it’s not the greatest achievement in acting history, but hot-damn does Ken Takakura ooze menace and cool in equal measure.
The story itself was a step away from the renowned Yakuza films that dominated TOEI’s productions to that point, and whilst Golgo 13 would see a change in locale to 1970s Iran, TOEI’s years of squeezing every penny out of every production would pay off. With a seasoned veteran like the versatile Junya Satō at the helm this was the refresh that all involved were looking for, and one that audiences got.
Golgo 13 is fascinating, if for no other reason than for the peek at an Iran that is very different from the one we see today. Shot several years before the Iranian revolution (1978), we see a glimpse of a country revelling in its place in the world and the rare freedoms it’s citizens once had. Each character is dressed in the fashions of the day, with knee-high boots and splashes of colour lighting up the screen – something that is far removed from much of Iranian cinema today (Holy Spider for example).
Junya Satō takes every opportunity to let the audience know that they aren’t in Japan anymore. From assassination attempts in Persepolis to high-octane car chases in the Iranian desert, the camera captures the great expanses that are usually missing from the claustrophobic streets of Tokyo or Osaka.
Ken Takakura being the only Japanese face on screen for any length of time and the Iranian cast being dubbed into Japanese (thanks to the lack of live audio recorded – very similar to how Hong Kong productions would work right into the 90s and 00s), gives it all a very Poliziotteschi (Italian crime films of the 1970s) feel, with characters delivering lines that seldom makes sense, but also make total sense in the world they live in.
It also manages to get its nod in for Spaghetti Westerns with its rousing score and windswept desert setting – reminiscent of some of the best scenes Sergio Leone ever put to film (and a building score that could have come from El Maestro himself, Ennio Morricone).
While many aspects of Golgo 13 will be very familiar to those that revel in the Japanese crime films of the 60s and 70s, what really sets this apart is the sheer scale. Junya Satō takes every opportunity to let the audience know that they aren’t in Japan anymore. From assassination attempts in Persepolis to high-octane car chases in the Iranian desert, the camera captures the great expanses that are usually missing from the claustrophobic streets of Tokyo or Osaka. This in of itself gives a sense of grandeur not often seen in such films.
The plot may be nonsensical, but it is adequate enough to get us from one action set piece to the next at a fast enough pace that nothing in Golgo 13 ever feels static or stale, and at a touch under 105 minutes it feels a lot shorter as it rarely stops to see if it’s audience is keeping up.
Golgo 13 is far from the best in class for Japanese Assassin movies, but it has that slick cool that often accompanies 1970s cinema. It grabs the attention and runs with it, even if it doesn’t always know where it’s going, and it’s well worth the investment if for no other reason than for seeing Ken Takakura at his effortless best, and who doesn’t want to see that?
Golgo 13 is out on Eureka Blu-Ray
Ben’s Archive: Golgo 13 (1973)
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